


Bane of the Doctor - Part 8: The Manson Anomalies

by RodimusDoctor



Series: Bane of the Doctor [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Delirium Archive, Gen, Science Fiction, Seventh Transept, Time Anomalies, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RodimusDoctor/pseuds/RodimusDoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor exits the anomaly and finds himself in a lavatory somewhere in the Delirium Archive's past, back when it was still the Seventh Transept. While looking for a way to escape, he is confronted by a younger version of his enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost in the Loo

**Author's Note:**

> Part VIII is a long one, so I decided to break it into chapters. The story sees The Doctor visiting three different time-zone locations as a result of his contact with spacetime anomalies, so it made sense to have a separate chapter for each one.

The Doctor blinked, pursed his lips and flicked his eyes back and forth.

“Okayyy,” he said. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

He did a quick scan of the room with his screwdriver. No, the anomaly was gone; he’d have to find another way back to the others.

As he thought these things, the Doctor finally took in the room into which he’d arrived. And then a toilet flushed.

“I’m in the loo,” he said. Ahead of him a bank of vibro-cleansers awaited patrons’ freshly-soiled hands, while a row of stalls lined the wall behind him. The walls themselves were a dark shaded stone that, combined with the drab and broody ceiling, gave the room a gothic, almost monasterial look.

Not unlike the walls and ceiling of the Delirium Archive, he noticed. Perhaps he was still there, but somewhere in its past or future.

Definitely past, he thought. He could distinguish the direction of passage through the vortex from his thousand years of experience. Oh dear, he thought, remembering the Archive’s previous occupants. The last thing he needed was to run into the Headless Monks...

The door to the loo opened and a young boy walked in. He wore military fatigues, and had a fresh bruise on his face. And a slight squirm in his step.

“Who are you?” he asked the Doctor. “And why do you dress so stupid?”

The Doctor’s mouth fell open and forward in indignation.

“I. Don’t. Dress. Stupid!” he said. “And look who’s talking! Who are you supposed to be, G. I. Jimmy? Action Man With Spots?”

“This is how everyone dresses here,” the kid said, shuffling his legs. “Except for the monks. You,” he pointed a finger, “don’t belong here.”

“I’ve only just arrived!” the Doctor said. “You’ve only just met me and already you think I don’t belong? Just because I dress better than you?”

“Intruder!” the kid shouted. “Raise the alarm, we have an intruder!”

The Doctor tensed, then relaxed. Because absolutely nothing happened.

“Try ‘guards, guards,’ he suggested. “That one usually...”

“Guards! Guards!” the boy shouted. And squirmed a bit more. Nothing continued to happen.

“Bad luck,” the Doctor said. “I was certain I was in trouble that time.”

“Shut up!” the boy cried.

The Doctor turned away and did another scan with his screwdriver. There was another anomaly forming, he was sure of it.

“Having problems, Dirgie-dink?” said a larger, fatter boy who at that moment had emerged from the middle stall. “Guess you’d better run away, hah!”

“Shut it, Togger!” the dink snapped. “I’m trying to report a security breach!”

Just beyond the farthest stall, the Doctor thought as he analyzed his screwdriver’s data. Definitely an anomaly forming there.

“That guy?” the fat kid named Togger pointed at the Doctor. “Come on, Dirgie-doo, he looks about as threatening as you do.”

“Then what’s that stupid thing on his neck?” he walked right up to the Doctor and pointed between his collars.

“It’s a bowtie,” the Doctor said, touching it gently. “It’s cool.”

“Wha...” said the fat boy.

“Aha!” said the squirming dink. “Bowties are cool! He’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor looked back at the dink, reassessing him. And the words the fat boy had said suddenly registered. Dirgy-dink. Why don’t you run away...

“Oh no...” he murmured, and he stared deeply into the boy’s eyes. Memories of being trapped in a cell looking out at a scarecrow and a grown up version of the face in front of him...

And terror. Soul-shredding terror.

“It’s all right boys, well done!” he said, almost loud enough to cover his fear. “Just testing. And you pass with flying colours. Look!” he whipped out his psychic paper and showed it to them.

“Sir!” the fat boy snapped to attention and saluted.

“Fractals!” cried the young Dirge Manson. “It’s psychic paper, stupid! Help!”

“What is going on in here?” Captain Manson burst into the loo and stopped dead, staring at the man with the bowtie. “You...”

“It’s him, father!” Dirge cried. “It’s the Doctor.”

The jig was up. But he didn’t have to like it. The Doctor stuffed his psychic paper back into his coat pocket next to his sonic screwdriver and said:  
“Hello, Colonel Runaway.”

Captain Manson’s gun was in his hand, pointed at the Doctor’s chest. Behind him, more cadets burst in to see what the excitement was.

Young Dirge continued to squirm.

“Well done, son,” Captain Manson said. “You have captured the Doctor. I always knew you would. You should therefore be the one to finish it.” He took his gun by the barrel and prepared to toss it to Dirge.

All the cadets, even the fat boy, turned to look upon Dirge with genuine respect.

Oh dear, the Doctor thought as he made a minute setting change to his screwdriver. He now understood why the grown up Dirge Manson hated him so much.

Captain Manson tossed the gun. Dirge Manson reached out to catch it. And the Doctor sent a sonic wave directly into the junior Manson’s bowels.

The rude, wet noise was unmistakable. As was the smell. Dirge fumbled the gun and sent it tumbling to the floor by the Doctor’s feet.

There was a moment when the world before the Doctor seemed to freeze; he used that moment to snatch up the gun. Time reasserted itself, and the fat boy recovered first.

“Dirgie pooed his pants!” he shouted, and the assembled cadets burst into laughter. Dirge stood red-faced with shame, chunky fluid dribbling out the leg-holes of his fatigues. Captain Manson’s expression held both sympathy and contempt.

“Discipline yourselves!” he shouted, and nearly had the children back on his side. Then he made the mistake of saying: “This is not funny!” Cadets who had almost got themselves under control roared with helpless laughter once more.

The Doctor shut himself inside the last stall. Modulating the weapon’s beam with his screwdriver, he used the gun to carve a door-sized hole in the wall. He kicked the brickwork out of the way and leapt into the room beyond.

It was a prayer hall, filled with Headless Monks. One of whom had been flattened by the rectangle of brick the Doctor had inadvertently dropped on him. He might have recovered, had the Doctor not landed on the brick rectangle and finished him off.

The Doctor tumbled into the centre of the room and had just enough time to see the monks drawing their swords before he hit the anomaly and made good his escape.


	2. The Skulls of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor emerges from the second anomaly into a distressingly familiar chamber, still somewhere in the Seventh Transept's past. Another confrontation with the Mansons awaits him, as do thousands of hungry skulls...

It had seemed an amazing coincidence to the Doctor that he’d happened upon a young Dirge Manson after getting displaced by that first anomaly. Even given that the Delirium Archive had once housed the Headless Monks, and that the Monks had provided spiritual training for Church cadets, and that Dirge Manson had apparently been one such cadet, the odds of them running into each other were astronomical to the point of being ridiculous. 

Contrived, even.

After his experience following his exit from the second anomaly, however, he was forced to run those numbers again.

The air was thin but breathable. The Doctor had materialized behind a large metal crate; he used it for cover when he heard voices echoing faintly off distant walls. Good acoustics for such a large space, he thought; at least the size of a Class XM starship cargo hold, and half the size of the Tardis library (not including the pool). There were a few other crates, mostly confined to the walls, leaving a wide-open space in the middle.

And there were people, lying on the floor, hands at their sides. They wore jumpsuits and masks made from an orange fabric, covering them from head to toe like mummies. For a moment the Doctor thought they might be corpses, but the one nearest to him appeared to be breathing regularly. Chest rising and falling, the air making a strange tubular sound...

The Doctor looked closer; each of them appeared to have a small black pipe protruding from their chests...

He slapped a hand to his lower rib cage, where his own breathing tube had been. His breathing became more rapid, his hearts pounded at top speed, and his stomach clenched into a nightmare fist. The Doctor slid to the floor, his back pressed against the crate, his knees useless.

He recognized the approaching voice...

“...is where we meditate,” an older Dirge Manson said as he and a heavy-set man (probably his father) approached. “We achieve spiritual purity through sensory deprivation trust suits. One of the Monks leads a group of us in, we lie down, and when we’ve achieved sufficient enlightenment...”

“We never had this in my training days,” Manson Sr. commented. “We achieved spiritual discipline on our knees in prayer! This chamber seems more like an indulgence.”

“Tell me that after you’ve had a pipe jammed into your chest!” Dirge said.

“Yes, why is that necessary?” Manson Senior asked, stopping on the other side of the crate. “A hole in the mask...”

“...would let sound and light in,” Dirge told him. “They’d be able to talk to each other. They could choose not to breathe the various gases we employ to enhance the experience.”  
“Gases?”

“We’ve come a long way from incense, sir.”

“I didn’t send you here to smoke dope with your chums!”

“Try to have an open mind, father...”

“Captain,” his father said, “or sir. We are on duty, Private Manson. This is an official inspection.”

“Which any cadet could have taken you on, sir,” the private answered, “yet you specifically chose...”

“Yes, yes, all right,” Captain Manson said. The Doctor imagined him fighting a smile. “I get so few privileges these days. If I can use an official trip as an excuse to spend time with my son, well... I can be sentimental if I want to. What do you keep in these crates, by the way?” As he spoke, he slapped the side of the crate with his palm.

The crate shook, and the sound of applause filled the air. The Doctor threw himself forward against the wall, watching as the great steel box shuddered and moved.

“This whole area,” Dirge said, “is underneath the Seventh Transept. The crates contain the last of the living skulls.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened; he remembered seeing his chess opponent Gantok eaten alive by those skulls. He imagined there must be hundreds in that crate, jaws snapping, trying to get out...

“Get a hold of yourself,” he whispered in his mind, closing his eyes tight. “The skulls cannot get out of the crate. If they could, they’d have done so long before you blundered in. You’re suffering a relapse of the fear you felt in this very chamber. Nothing more. If you start sobbing and wimpering, you’ll likely attract the attention of the Mansons. That would be inconvenient, and might possibly ruin a good chunk of your personal history. Pull yourself together, find another anomaly and jump through it.”

The Doctor nodded, opened his eyes and stood. The noise of agitated skulls in the crate had already begun to wane. He scanned the area with his screwdriver and noted the location of the anomaly, then he stepped out from behind the crate.

The Mansons were waiting for him.

“I knew I heard someone...” Dirge began, and then he recognized him. His father had already made the connection, and his gun was in his hand.

“Doctor!” he said.

“Colonel Runaway,” the Doctor replied. “And you,” he turned to the son, “are Dirge Runaway. Manson. Dirge Manson. Although it’s all the same to me.”

Dirge stepped forward and backhanded the Doctor in the face. The blow spun the Doctor around, and he fell to the floor beside the corner of the crate.

“Shut your mouth, talking man,” Dirge said, and he swung a kick into the Doctor’s stomach.

“Not so smug now, are you?” Captain Manson added.

“Well, yes,” the Doctor clutched at his midsection with his left hand. His right hand he placed around the crate’s edge. “To be quite honest, I don’t know why no one’s done that to me before.”

“Not that I’m unhappy to have you suddenly appear out of nowhere for us to capture and execute,” Captain Manson squatted down in front of the Doctor, “but security would have warned us the moment your Tardis landed. Which means you arrived without it. How did you come to be here?”

“I’ll show you,” the Doctor replied. “I plan to escape the same way.”

“You’re going nowhere!” Dirge reared back his leg for another kick. In the crate, the skulls grew restless again.

“There’s no need for that, Private,” Captain Manson said. “We want him in the best of health for his execution. A very public affair. One we shall all be famous for.” He leaned in closer to the Doctor, and continued. “Everyone will forget the words you had me say, Doctor. And for the humiliation you’ve put my son and I through...”

“Exactly what you deserved,” the Doctor’s voice grew dark, “for what you did to Amy Pond.” And me, he thought, looking up at the young man who would become his tormentor. “This isn’t the right time, Mansons. An opportunity will come in the future, and you,” he fixed Dirge with his eyes, “will make a choice. You can still decide to make the right one. Now,” his face brightened once more, “time I was going.”

“You won’t escape, Doctor,” Captain Manson said, raising his voice above the din the skulls were making.

“I already have,” the Doctor replied. “And I’ve had quite a head start.” He turned up the output on his sonic screwdriver, which he’d kept hidden in his right sleeve.

All at once, the bolts and welds holding the crate together came loose. The crate fell apart, all four walls dropping away, the nearest one hitting Captain Manson on the head and his son on the leg.

And the skulls poured out like popcorn, jaws snapping. Captain Manson was out cold but covered by the crate wall. Dirge had no such protection; the skulls were all over him, biting and tearing.

The Doctor was already moving, running to the next-nearest crate. He leapt and grabbed the top of the container, then tried to pull himself up. Within the crate, the skulls became agitated.

Dirge rolled away from the collapsed crate, crushing a few skulls under his weight. His leg was broken but he forced himself to stand; using his good leg for support, he stomped on the skulls around him. Each impact of his foot sent jolts of pain up his body; he ignored the agony and kept fighting.

The skulls had noticed Manson Sr.; they forced themselves under the metal crate wall to get at him. Dirge was certain the Doctor was about to escape; if he stopped him, he would be a hero in the eyes of everyone that mattered. The gun his father had dropped was only a short distance away...

But if he took the time to snatch it up and shoot the Doctor dead, the skulls would kill his father. Dirge roared in frustration and rushed to his father’s side, kicking skulls out of his way.

The Doctor climbed up onto the lip of the container and stood precariously upon it. There was no lid; before him was a multitude of skulls just barely out of biting range. It occurred to the Doctor that, if he was wrong, he would fall into the crate and the skulls would make short work of him. He took a deep breath, bent his knees and leapt out over the deadly cargo.  
Fortunately, the anomaly was right where he’d calculated it to be. The world went strange, and the Doctor was off into the time vortex once more.


	3. The Fate of Colonel Runaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Seventh Transept's recent future, surrounded by boxes and shelves of skulls, the Doctor confronts 'Colonel Runaway' Manson for the last time.

The Doctor found himself in the Seventh Transept, where he had once come to see Dorian Maldovar. And, he realized, five hundred metres above the spot where he had just been. A glance at the floor showed where the trap door to the skull pit had been. Further into the future, then. But how far?

The previous anomalies had led to confrontations with the Mansons at different points on their timeline. This time was not likely to be different. The Doctor scanned for the next anomaly – it would help to know which way to go ahead of time – and realized he had the Mansons’ sonic wave patterns from when he’d taken his readings of the meditation/torture chamber below. If he could isolate those patterns from those of the crates, the skulls, the chamber itself and the anomaly, he could use them to find the Mansons before they found him!

“Oh, Doctor, you are clever,” he told himself as he played with the device. “There we are, that’s just about... oh.”

The Doctor turned left and walked to the wall, where a stack of head boxes were shelved. Was one of them behind that wall? Had they predicted where the anomaly would deposit him and laid a trap? Was that wall really a hologram?

No, it was not. The screwdriver would have detected such a device. But one of them was definitely ahead of him...

...ahead.

And a much more likely scenario occurred to him. The Doctor approached the boxes, chose the one his screwdriver indicated, and opened the hatch.

Colonel Runaway looked out at him. For a moment he was alarmed, but then his features resolved themselves into resigned anger.

“Come to gloat?” he said.

“I don’t gloat,” the Doctor replied. “Although in your case I might just take it up as a hobby.”

“Go on then,” Manson said. “Make your jokes. Colonel Runaway finally gets ahead! Perhaps he should quit running now that he’s ahead! I’ve heard them all.”

“Yes, you have, haven’t you?” the Doctor leaned in. “You’re quite a bit older, and you’ve been here a long time, haven’t you? Judging by the residual damaged tissue on what’s left of your neck,” he placed a couple of fingers under Manson’s chin and lifted him to get a better look, “I’d say you’ve been here four years, give or take a month or two. How’s the wi-fi?”

“Do not touch me, Doctor!” Manson shouted.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you roll away,” the Doctor said. “I still want to know what you’re doing in here. I hardly think it was voluntary. You must have made someone in the Papal Mainframe very cross.”

“That hardly matters now,” Manson said, dropping his gaze.

“It does to me,” the Doctor said. “After all, they didn’t send you here after your failure at Demon’s Run. And now that Dirge is in his late teens, I’d expect...”

“Mid thirties,” Manson corrected him.

“Is he? That would match up with the voice I heard while he had me captive. And given that detail you so generously shared with me,” he paused for a moment to let that sink in, “I’d say you’re here because the Papal Mainframe did not in fact approve of Dirgie’s plans. Anything further you’d like to tell me?”

“Nothing you do will make a difference,” Manson said. “My son has already succeeded. He broke you, Doctor. Even now you are his helpless puppet and you don’t even know it.”

“He brainwashed me,” the Doctor said.

“Yes!” Manson snarled, realizing he’d again told the Doctor more than he’d meant to. “But even with that knowledge,” his eyes flicked left for the tiniest of moments, “you cannot escape your fate. You will be triggered. Perhaps you’ve been triggered already,” he raised his voice, “and have delivered yourself to your doom! And when my son rescues me, we will be glorified throughout all of history!”

“Rescue you?” the Doctor said. “You’ve been here, how long did I say? Four years? He’s a bit late, don’t you...”

“And another thing, Doctor,” Manson raised his voice even higher, “one final thing I shall tell you.” His face broke into a smile. “Watch your head.”

The Doctor ducked, expecting a vorpal swing from behind. Instead, the Headless Monk who’d been sneaking up on him thrust forward with its sword, straight through the air where the Doctor’s head had been. Momentum carried the sword further, right into Manson’s box.

The monk released the sword, staggered back, and fell over. The sword had gone clean through the box and out the other side, and blood trickled from the tear in the metal.

The Doctor stood back up. He hadn’t intended for Manson to die. Nor the monk. The skin around the monk’s wrists was the same shade of brown as Manson’s face – had it been his body? If so, apparently it couldn’t survive without its original head.

The Doctor didn’t bother to find out. Others would come, and he needed an escape. Before he did so, he removed the identifying plaque from Manson’s box and tucked it into his coat. He was halfway down the aisle when the Attack Prayer began. They were on to him, and they were on their way. 

The anomaly was near, but it was still forming. Down the aisle on the left, the anomaly would appear above the shelves along the far wall. Not far to go...

A Headless Monk turned the corner ahead and blocked his path. Its sword was drawn and crackling with energy; there would be no escape that way.

Naturally, there was no escape behind him, either. Another Monk had cut off his retreat; the two monks advanced slowly toward the Doctor, swords held before them with both hands. Their prey was a dead man, provided he stood still and waited.

The Doctor did no such thing. With a hop he was up and onto the shelves on his right. The skulls went on the attack, and a few caught hold of his clothing as he scrambled up past them. The Doctor ran along the top shelf, crunching skull after skull under his feet while swatting at those clinging to his jacket and trousers. The monks below slashed at him with their swords, but only succeeded in destroying more skulls.

With a final leap, the Doctor sailed over the monks’ lack-of-heads and into the anomaly, vanishing into the timestream once more.


End file.
